What if the city could make us healthier? Or what if the hospital is divided up into accessible and super-efficient health hubs? And what role will technology play in the healthcare of the future? Over the past year, scientists from the Design Sciences Hub have been working on all these questions out of their Blue Sky Studio. The design who?
The 'Design Sciences Hub' is a research, design and innovation hub in Antwerp. They bring together policymakers, end users, business partners and researchers to solve some of the biggest urban issues of our time. Each year, they tackle a new topic from their Blue Sky Studio and work to come up with 'wicked solutions for wicked problems'. They further develop and design these ideas into future scenarios and solutions for current challenges. In this way, they help to build the city of the future. A layered assignment, in other words, one that we were more than happy to sink our teeth into.
For The Blue Sky Studio, the year 2020 was all about the future of healthcare - how could it be otherwise with the pandemic? Much thinking and brainstorming later, the 'Future Urban Health' exhibition was created. A virtual exhibition where all design solutions and scenarios are brought together and where you as a visitor can be astonished by the possibilities of the future.
Enough material to exhibit, but the eye also desires something. That' s where DIFT comes into the picture. We received the briefing to do the graphic design of all communication around the exhibition. We opted for a brightly coloured branding that was formally inspired by the packaging of medicines from the 1970s. The austere, simple forms are also a representation of the dynamic nature of 'the city'. The city grows, the city expands. We portray this fact through the dynamic typography, the repetition and the compositions that fill the sheet, just like the people in the city do.
Besides the graphics for the carriers and social media, we were also allowed to work out the scenography of the virtual exhibition. The patterns we use there are inspired by the visual culture in the cityscape: road markings, signs, billboards and more are displayed here in a stylised, minimalist graphic approach.
We also developed a reader for them that takes you step by step through the entire museum. A digital guide, so to speak, that tells you about the works on display. We also made an introductory video for them to visually explain the 'Blue Sky Studio' and the virtual exhibition. As icing on the cake, we graphically transformed the innovation process into a (scientific) publication.
Are you curious about the result?
Then be sure to visit the virtual exhibition 'Future Urban Health'.
